Before you start uploading videos, you need to decide which search terms you’re hoping to rank for.
One strategy is to choose a search term that already has YouTube video results on the first page of Google.
Just by making sure you choose a search term that will result in YouTube videos showing up in the SERPs, you can work towards getting your own video ranked on Google and not just in YouTube search.
One tool you can use is KeywordTool.io. This can quickly generate YouTube-specific keyword ideas that are relevant to your brand.
Start by searching for a variety of keyword strings that relate to your product or service type, and see what people are looking for.
If you don’t want to pay for a monthly subscription, you can just copy and paste the keywords into Google’s Keyword Planner to check the overall search volume.
Just keep in mind that your target keyword should get at least 300 searches per month.
Another good tool to use is YouTube’s Search Suggest feature.
Just head over to YouTube and start typing a word or phrase. YouTube then offers you a list of keyword phrases related to what you just typed in.
For example, type in “public speaking,” and you get “public speaking tips,” “public speaking training,” public speaking anxiety,” etc.
These are your suggested keywords, and these are all things people actually type into YouTube’s search bar, so there’s no need for you to wonder if they’re popular or not. If YouTube suggests them, they’re currently being used.
You can also visit any popular video in your niche and copy the keywords that video is using. If a video is getting a ton of views, chances are it’s optimized around a popular keyword in your market.
Tip: Go to a channel in your niche and sort their videos by “Most Popular.” This shows you their videos that have generated the most views.
Another way to find keywords is to use your YouTube Traffic Source > YouTube Search report. This report shows you all the keywords that YouTube users have searched for to find your videos. Often, you’ve already found the keywords and used them in your description and tags, but sometimes you’ll find a handful of keywords you’d never have thought of.
Once you have a list of keywords, you’ll want to target the low-competition keywords, especially if your channel doesn’t have that many subscribers yet.
If you use high-competition keywords, your video is going to be buried in the search results. To find low-competition words, search for your keyword in Google and check out the “About Results.”
This number shows the total number of videos in YouTube about that specific topic. The higher the number, the more competition for that spot, so you want to target keywords with a low “About Results” number.
Most views on YouTube come from within YouTube’s platform, but your video can get two to five times more views if you can also get it to rank in Google.
The trick it to optimize your videos around keywords that already have video results in Google, as we’ve previously mentioned.
